SoyCDs NL50 & NL100 Challenge [The Down that wouldn't end]

In August I decided with all the different challenges from TheLastNail, TwiceT, opal, swissmoumout etc running that I'd try to put in some volume and made myself the challenge to play 20-25k hands of NL50 SH & FR in August. If that went well I would continue with NL100 in September in order to be at NL200 by November.

I was also planning on blogging about it to let everyone know how it was going. In the end I did manage to play the hands - but didn't blog so I will now try to make up for that with a recap and some continuity.

August

The month started off pretty decently. After the first sessions I was up a few hundred, yet still not really happy with the way I was playing. My general stats looked ok yet I had the feeling that I was playing too tight in a lot of spots and not taking down enough pots postflop. I was also leaving out a lot of good pre-flop 3bet spots and generally not getting enough out of my opponents. So I put in some experimental sessions on NL20 and came back with a more refined approach.

The result was a very good start of the month.

As you can see from the Graph I managed to decimate for the first 14k hands (25bb/100) where I was just running & playing very good. Sadly every up has a down and variance soon hit. The next 14k hands were slightly negative to BE and I was having a lot of frustrating sessions. Nonetheless I managed to end the month very nicely and cleared over half of my Mansion FDB.

I was also happy to finish 78th or so in the English Community Top100 rankings

Mid-September

Having managed to reach my August goals I proceeded with the plan and moved on to NL100 in September. I also threw in several NL50 sessions depending on how the tables were. Up until September 18th I only managed to get around to playing 2 NL100 sessions though (was too busy :/) but was amazed at the amount of fish that were sitting at every table.

With only those two sessions and 3,3k hands of break-even NL50 played so far I still have a long way to go to reach this month's goals though.

Two more posts now of sessions that happened after the Mid-September mark - so after everything in the initial post.

Sept.15
Decided to play a bit after work in order to get on track for still reaching those 20k MCP for September. Decided for NL50 since the NL100 tables were quite tight at that time.

Tables were decent with plenty of fish but the session was very unusual for me. I was getting it in ahead pretty much constantly but having my hands cracked on a consistent basis. Non-SD winnings were quite high due to several people 4-bet folding vs my shoves and me abusing the regs (while also making thin hero calls)

Conclusion after the day: Felt good about my play - didn't feel so good about everything else

Most controversial hand for me:

Didn't want to play the AK, OOP so I 4bet the fishy reg. after his call he can still have a wide range since he utterly sucks. So I decide I can't fold and max the FE by simply getting it in on the flop (hoping to fold out small pockets - while getting calls from AQ/AJ)

The weekend was painful to say the least. Although I started off with a good Friday evening on which I thought I'd play a few hands (and won 200$ in just as many hands) - the rest of the weekend sucked.

I had 4 flopped set under sets situations and lost 2 further sets to straights. I posted some of the hands in the hand evaluation board and in hindsight I could have gotten away from perhaps 1-2 but in all the others I was committed and still doing fine against the opposing range.

I did manage to recoup the losses several times but in the end it just always headed back downhill. The last hand I raised the UTG limper fish again and slightly tilted decided to go broke on the 877 double suited board, which he had ofc hit with K7o. That was the trigger to calling it a night.

Overall though nearly 3k hands at NL100 and a total of 10k MCP now

10k MCP to go for the goal
Spent Sunday reading some literature, watching some videos and going over hands. Monday is MCP Happy Hour so aiming for a winning session there

As planned I opened up the tables at 19:45 to take advantage of two hours of MCP happy hour. The tables were once again fishy as hell and the MCP rolled in at an incredibly fast rate.

Unfortunately I am still having problems acclimatizing to this "non-upswing" phase of poker and continued running less than well. So after an early up- I lost a few stacks with QQ vs JT on a T high board, had a postflop maniac hit a set vs my aces, AK vs AA against preflop aggro guy and some questionable plays.

I already posted 3 of them in the evaluation section yesterday so that I can get scolded for my bad play

The funniest hand is obviously my spew J9s raise where both of us hit Gin on the turn. I hit the nut straight with the FD and he hits top set. We get it in and he rivers the FH - happens

I managed to get back to break even though just as happy hour ended just to lose another 1,5 stacks as I was closing the tables. Since there were still plenty of fish around though - I stayed a while and managed to finish breakeven.

Will post some more hands later.

Overall: Breakeven but 4k MCP more. That means 40$ of bonus, reached my Monthly Mansion Goal (90$) and am in reachable grasp of the 20k needed to maintain Elite. So at least 2-3 more sessions this month - one of which will surely be Monday the 28th

Another evening session of NL100
I decided to go for exclusively 8-10 max tables this time around and played 10-12 at the same time. I like the tight tables and the ability to raise a lot from LP

Session started slow with me picking up small pots and the blinds a lot until the swings started again. I would win some nice pots just to squander it all again with questionable plays. I didn't actually notice it until later (since the hands all happened at different tables) but a lot of my early large pots were played against the same calling station reg/fish

Ironically while comparing my preflop ranges across the positions in HEM today I found that I was tightening up my isolating and 3betting range quite a bit compared to last month - but loosening up postflop a bunch. Will need to analyse what leaks I got rid of and what leaks I've integrated.

Since I did run quite badly again (along with the coolers) I wasn't too worried about being down and just tried to pick up more pots postflop with well placed second barrels or raises. It seemed to work and as I was closing down the session I even managed to hit a bit and won a few large pots.

Seems like today the fish on iPoker were on holiday. With the NL100 tables being totally devoid of fish I decided to simply open a ton of NL50 FR tables (too long waiting lists on the also boring looking SH ones) in order to abuse nits.

Note to self: the next time you are bored go watch some paint dry instead.

Sitting at tables tables with tons of people who all have 1.4-2.4% 3bet stats and who play some somewhere between 9/5 and 13/3 can perhaps be somewhat entertaining for the first few rounds of raising up the blinds with A2C from the cutoff or button - but after a while it gets kind of boring when everybody is just playing totally straight forward and there isn't even a single loose fish at any of the tables.

So I played a few hundred hands - was even up 1,5 stacks for a while - before losing them again with 2x QQ and a few missed draws. One QQ I lost against JJ that hit a FH on the river and the other one against AA, Ironically I didn't lose my entire stack in either of the hands - and in the AA hand I only lost as much as I did since I was curious whether he would fold AA as the board got uglier for him.

Unable to loosen up the action I therefore opened up some 6 max tables- saw those were also boring and then decided to call it a night

Oh wait while writing this I had a hand- but HEM is screwing around so I can't post my KK < AK preflop all-in which I obviously lost on the river

After not playing any more sessions during the week & going to a crazy party on Friday - I didn't get to play any more poker till Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

The sessions were crazy to say the least. Swinging up and down like crazy again - my sessions just didn't want to stay in the green. As soon as I won some big pot with a set or with aces or kings I'd lose an even bigger one with the nut straight versus some crazy maniac in the next.

(notice the thick green ups and downs around ~150)

I could have gotten away from a few more hands than I did - but simply got unlucky in a few others. I also just went through my pre-flop all-ins on NL100 for this month and see that I have only been involved in 4 full stack flips of which I have lost every single one. Ironically all of them are AK < 33 & 44 & 99. So once I start winning those I hope to regain the upwards trend- since at the moment my graph is just one large swingfest.

This session's flip was courtesy of a very aggressive German Lag. We hadn't gotten involved in too many quarrels so far until he opened from the CO and I 3bet on the Button. The blinds get out of the way and he makes a 4bet to 25$ which is pretty standard sized. Now against most people I would get out of the way here with AQ - but since he seemed like the type that 4bet any first 3bet I put him on a wide range - and shoved. He snap called with 99 (which makes me wonder what kind of image he had of me) and won the flip.

So a bit of a late update from last Monday. It was happy hour grinding time again - this time to clear the remaining Mansion points I was still missing.

The session started the same way as they have all too often lately. 3 stacks down. Once I lost a 60 vs 40 race on the flop, once with a flip and the third time there was an all-in push for 20BB infront of me by a maniac shorty and a cold call by a total fish. I wanted to go all-in but only raised to 79$. Fish calls so he has 18$ left- but 3 outers me on the flop when I put him allin. Cost me a bunch of slansky money for my graph

Although I managed to came back party due to sucking out with QQ vs KK in a pre-flop all-in the rest of the night need not be mentioned.

I was sitting IP of 4 fish each 400-700bb deep on each of my tables but simply lost money instead of winning it.

In the end I managed to get my 20k MCP goal and will do a monthly review later - but had yet another losing session.

September is over and Oktober still sucks
I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to call it a downswing yet- but my last 2 weeks have been plain-out atrocious.

I went through my NL100 DB and found out that from 8 full stack flips I have won exactly 0. I also found more sets that I have lost than I have won and just a general horrible performance for strong hands (e.g. 5 times second nut flush vs flush but never opposite). Obviously these are just whine-statistics so I'll do a more detailed analysis of my game during my monthly review for September in order to search for leaks - but I certainly think I'm currently in a rough variance spot.

Not very happy with how things are going at the moment of course and will take a break to have an analysis of how much of this down & break-even stuff is my fault.

Well its been a while since I updated here. Lack of updates stemming mainly from me being really busy with work and not having the nerves to play at night - partially since I have been running quite bad and have not been properly motivated.

After a bad September and bad start into October I took a breather and tried to re-gain focus. So I played some lower stakes on PokerStars, where I also ran bad but was at least positive, and also did a small sweat session with JustKyle to try and help him get a better feeling for short-handed.

Since I am way behind schedule for my 20k points on Mansion this month (I had 4k points at the beginning of the weekend) I really needed to put in some volume though. So I played a mix of NL50 and NL100 on the weekend - with some NL20 HU thrown into the middle. Suffice to say the trend continues and I pretty much run at least 2 stacks under EV every session - with a few sick coolers thrown in here and there. I did end with 300$ up though so I am happy for that.

All in all: positive side is that I'm actually up again, the negative side that I'm still running over 1300 bb (~$800) under EV. Hoping to have this change soon since its really straining my emotional relationship with Mansion at the moment